Bob Ellis

Robert James Ellis (10 May 1942 – 3 April 2016) was an Australian writer, journalist, filmmaker, and political commentator.^[1] He was a student at the University of Sydney at the same time as other notable Australians including Clive James, Germaine Greer, Les Murray, John Bell, Robert Hughes and Mungo McCallum. He lived in Sydney with the author and screenwriter Anne Brooksbank; they had three children.

Early years[edit]

Ellis was raised a Seventh-day Adventist. He says the "seminal moment" of his life happened when he was ten and his 22-year-old sister was killed while crossing the road.^[2] He attended Lismore High and then the University of Sydney on a Sir Robert Menzies scholarship. After graduating he had a variety of jobs before being employed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.^[3]

Writing career[edit]

Ellis was a regular contributor to the Nation Review in the 1970s and subsequently contributed to Fairfax Media newspapers and The National Times.^[4]

Ellis became a popular playwright, usually working in collaboration. In 1970 he and Michael Boddy (1934–2014) co-wrote The Legend of King O'Malley, a musical play based on the life of King O'Malley. From 1975 to 1986 he and Brooksbank also owned the Stables Theatre in Kings Cross, Sydney, during which time it became home to the Griffin Theatre Company.^[5] They sold it in 1986 for $200,000.^[6]

Ellis wrote several film scripts, often in collaboration with others, notably Newsfront (1978), ...Maybe This Time (1980, with Anne Brooksbank), Fatty Finn (1980) Man of Flowers (1983, with Paul Cox), Goodbye Paradise (1983), Where the Green Ants Dream (Wo die grünen Ameisen träumen) (1984, with Werner Herzog), My First Wife (1984, with Paul Cox), Cactus (1986, with Paul Cox) and The Nostradamus Kid (1992).

In 1980 Ellis signed a contract with the New South Wales Film Corporation to write ten feature film scripts over two years for $7,000 for each script, with a payment of $12,000 for the second draft if they wanted to make the movie. Ellis says he presented them with 33 ideas, they chose five and he chose five.^[7]

Ellis also directed several films, including The Nostradamus Kid (1992), Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train (1988), Unfinished Business (1985) and Run Rabbit, Run (2007).^[8][9]

Ellis's writing for television included the miniseries True Believers (with co-author Matt Carroll) and Infamous Victory: Ben Chifley's Battle for Coal (2008), with co-author Geoff Burton, made for Film Australia.^[10]

Awards[edit]

Ellis won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Screenplay three times: Newsfront (1978, with Anne Brooksbank and Phillip Noyce),^[11] Goodbye Paradise (1982, with Denny Lawrence),^[12] and My First Wife (1984, with Paul Cox).^[13]

Politics[edit]

Ellis, a supporter of the Australian Labor Party, wrote speeches for a number of Labor leaders (such as Bob Carr, Paul Keating and Kim Beazley) and wrote extensively on Labor history.

Regarding Ellis's speech writing, Beazley said on the 7.30 Report that if he had used any of Ellis's speeches he would have been out of politics.^{[citation needed]}

Ellis unsuccessfully contested the Federal seat of Mackellar as an independent candidate against the Liberal Party's Bronwyn Bishop in a by-election in 1994 as the ALP did not field a candidate in that by-election.^[14][15]

Ellis's 2011 book Suddenly, Last Winter – An Election Diary created headlines for its criticism of the Labor Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and praise for the Liberal Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott. He described Gillard as "not well informed" and "sudden, firm and wrong" in everything she does. He also said "She has no power, no influence, no friends, no learning. There's not much there", while describing Abbott as having "good manners", being "formidable" and possessing a "first-class mind".^[16]

Ellis wrote speeches for South Australian Premier Mike Rann for a number of years.^[17]

Death[edit]

On 18 July 2015, Ellis reported on his blog that he would be attending hospital for what he called "ominous" tests on his liver. The next day he announced "The news is very bad", and that the tests had revealed he had advanced liver cancer with a prognosis that he had months, if not weeks, to live.^[18]

Ellis died on 3 April 2016, at his home in Sydney's Northern Beaches.^[19]

Controversy[edit]

In June 2018, Kate and Rozanna Lilley, daughters of celebrated playwright Dorothy Hewett, alleged that they had engaged in consensual sex at the ages of 15 and 14 with Ellis.^[20] Ellis was castigated by feminists including Delaney and Maley.^[21][22]

Writings[edit]

Ellis wrote two books, Goodbye Jerusalem and Goodbye Babylon, on his experiences of the Labor Party. The first edition of Goodbye Jerusalem was pulped following a successful defamation case brought by two Liberal cabinet ministers, Tony Abbott and Peter Costello, and their wives. At issue was the single sentence where Ellis quoted politician Rodney Cavalier as having said, "Abbott and Costello...they're both in the Right wing of the Labour [sic] Party till the one woman fucked both of them and married one of them and inducted them into the Young Liberals". The publisher, Random House, accepted that the disputed content was a falsehood and the book was removed from sale. ACT Supreme Court Justice Higgins awarded the two politicians and their wives a total of $277,000 damages. A new edition of the book was published three months later which omitted the defamatory passage.^[23][24]

In 1998 Penguin Books Australia published Ellis's First Abolish the Customer – 202 Arguments Against Economic Rationalism, then Ellis's The Capitalism Delusion – How Global Economics Wrecked Everything and What To Do About It in 2009, One Hundred Days of Summer in 2010, and The Ellis Laws in 2014.

Plays[edit]

• The Legend of King O'Malley (1970) with Michael Boddy
• Big Brother Dragon (1971) with Michael Boddy
• Duke of Edinburgh Assassinated or The Vindication of Henry Parkes (1971) with Dick Hall
• The Francis James Dossier (1973) – later The James Dossier (1975) – musical about Francis James
• Whitlam Days (1975)
• Down Under (1976) with Anne Brooksbank
• A Very Good Year (1980)
• Man, the musical (1990s) book and lyrics with Denny Lawrence, music by Chris Neal
• A Local Man: A Play about Ben Chifley (2004) with Robin McLachlan
• Shakespeare in Italy (2012) with Denny Lawrence
• Intimate Strangers (unproduced) with Denny Lawrence

Screenplays[edit]

• Newsfront (1978) with Anne Brooksbank
• Fatty Finn (1980)
• Maybe This Time (1980) with Anne Brooksbank
• Goodbye Paradise (1983) with Denny Lawrence
• Man of Flowers (1983) with Paul Cox
• The Winds of Jarrah (1983)
• My First Wife (1984) with Paul Cox
• Unfinished Business (1985) – also directed
• Top Kid (1985) (TV) with John Hepworth
• The Paper Boy (1985) (TV) with John Hepworth
• Cactus (1986) with Paul Cox
• The Gillies Republic (1986) (TV)
• Bullseye (1987)
• Perhaps Love (1987) (TV)
• True Believers (1988) (TV)
• Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train (1988) – also directed
• Gillies and Company (1992) (TV)
• Dreaming of Lords (1993) with Ernie Dingo – also directed
• The Nostradamus Kid (1993) – also directed
• Ebbtide (1994)
• Wildside (1998) Episode 24
• Bastards from the Bush, A Journey with Bob Ellis and Les Murray (1998) – documentary
• Infamous Victory: Ben Chifley's Battle for Coal (2008) – documentary

Unmade screenplays[edit]

• The Road to Gundagai (1980) – vehicle for Bert Newton and Gerard Kennedy as soldiers on latrine duty during the bombing of Darwin^[25]
• comedy script about radio actors in the 1940s (circa 1980)
• adaptation of The Sentimental Bloke for director Maurice Murphy starring Phillip Quast^[26]
• mini-series with James Ricketson about Bea Miles (circa 1980)
• road film about two girls going north to audition for a cabaret version of Brigadoon in Surfers Paradise (circa 1980)
• These Remembrances set around the time of the Whitlam Dismissal (circa 1980)
• The Girl from Kiev about two 40-year-old divorced lawyers travelling near Chernobyl falling for a Russian girl^[27]
• Shakespeare in Italy (2011)
• Paper Tigers – mini series about the Murdoch family

Novels[edit]

• Mad Dog Morgan (1976) with Anne Brooksbank – based on the Philippe Mora film Mad Dog Morgan
• Fatty Finn (1980) – based on his film script
• Top Kid (1985) – novelisation with John Hepworth of his film script
• The Paper Boy (1985) - novelisation with John Hepworth of his film script
• The Hewson Tapes : A Secret History, Perhaps, of Our Times (1993) – fiction presented as the diary of John Hewson
• The Season (1996) – with Roy Masters

Non-fiction[edit]

• The Things We Did Last Summer: An Election Journal – account of the 1983 Australian federal election
• Two weeks in another country : a journal of the 1983 British election – account of the 1983 United Kingdom general election
• Letters to the Future (1987) – collection of writings from 1969–87
• The Inessential Ellis (1992) – collection of writings
• Goodbye Jerusalem : night thoughts of a Labor outsider (1997) – writings centred on the history of the Australian Labor Party up to the 1996 Australian federal election
• First abolish the customer: 202 arguments against economic rationalism (1998)
• So it goes : essays, broadcasts, speeches 1987–1999 (1999)
• Goodbye Babylon : further journeys in time and politics (2002)
• Night thoughts in time of war (2004)
• And so it went: night thoughts in a year of change (2009) – events around the 2007 Australian federal election
• The capitalism delusion : how global economics wrecked everything and what to do about it (2009)
• One hundred days of summer : how we got to where we are (2010)
• Suddenly, last winter : an election diary (2010) – diary of the 2010 Australian federal election
• The Ellis Laws (2014)

Acting[edit]

• I Own the Racecourse (1985) – film
• The Human Behan (1995–96) – play
• Waiting for Godot (2000) – play
• Man of Flowers (Paul Cox, 1983) - film

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Ann Atkinson, Linsay Knight, Margaret McPhee (Ed.) (1996). The dictionary of performing arts in Australia. St Leonards, N.S.W. : Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-86448-005-X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Brian McFarlane, Geoff Mayer, Ina Bertrand (Ed.) (1999). The Oxford companion to Australian film. Melbourne; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-553797-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Philip Parsons, Victoria Chance (Ed.) (1995). Companion to theatre in Australia. Sydney: Currency Press in association with Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-86819-357-7.
• Leser, David "The two of us: Bob Ellis & Anne Brooksbank" The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Weekend) 16 August 1997 p. 12
• Arts news "Arts community to help Bob Ellis, after recent house fire" The Sydney Morning Herald 24 April 1993 p. 46
• King, Noel "Abbott and Costello. View From The Couch" The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Weekend) 21 November 1998 p. 94

External links[edit]

• Interview with Bob Ellis
• Ellis Table Talk (blog)
• Bob Ellis at IMDb
• Bob Ellis's Australian theatre credits at AusStage
• Bob Ellis Essays on the ABC website Unleashed
• 1988 interview with Bob Ellis at SBS Movie Show
• Table Talk: Bob Ellis on Film and Theatre blog
• Bob Ellis at Australian Screen Online